‘It’s time for you to go,’ he told her one day over dinner. ‘You’ve been amazing, I can’t thank you enough but let’s face it, it’s hardly your dream career. I’m making enough money to hire someone permanent now and I think you need to get back to your proper job.’

‘So you’re firing me?’ she said, in mock outrage.

‘Yep,’ he replied, wagging at finger at her. ‘Sophie Brennan, you’re fired.’

She had laughed along with him but she also felt sad and realised how much she’d enjoyed working alongside Alan and being part of the family business. She also knew that he was right, it was time for her to go back to her day job.

But getting back on the horse after a year off wasn’t easy. She’d lost touch and her motivation seemed to have fallen by the wayside. It didn’t help that Katie had just started school and wasn’t settling in well. She’d always been a sensitive child but it was still a shock after Tom had adapted to school life so easily. Peeling her weeping daughter off her each morning and watching her being dragged away by her teacher took its toll and the last thing Sophie felt like doing afterwards was getting rejected by editors.

At around the same time, she was asked to join the parents’ committee at the children’s school, a role she’d agreed to because she was terrible at saying no but found herself enjoying. She got increasingly involved, made some new friends and found that she didn’t mind how much of her time it took up. It was the perfect excuse to avoid the inevitable fact that she’d lost her way in her career. She told herself she didn’t mind – she had a wonderful husband, two amazing children and with Alan’s business doing well again they had enough money to pay the bills. But occasionally she found herself feeling lost at sea, especially now the children were both settled at school and didn’t need her in the way that they used to when they were tiny.

‘Do whatever makes you happy,’ Alan always told her whenever she tried to talk to him about it. ‘If that’s writing, then go for it. If you want to study and retrain, we’ll make it work. If you want to take a break and focus on the children for a while, do it: you’ve earned it, love.’

She sometimes felt like she didn’t deserve him.

‘Mum, can we go to the park?’ Tom’s question brought her back to reality and she realised that she was still staring out of the window, long after the family next door had disappeared.

‘It’s scorching hot out there, Tom. Perhaps we should go later, when it’s cooled down.’

‘What can we do then? I’m bored.’

Alan came in then and took in his children’s fed-up faces. ‘Fancy going down to the lido for a dip?’ he asked.

‘Yessss!’ Tom and Katie jumped up in unison. ‘Can we, Mum, please?’